J Autism Dev Disord DOI 10.1007/s10803-015-2427-4 ORIGINAL PAPER The ‘‘Reading the Mind in the Eyes’’ Test: Investigation of Psychometric Properties and Test–Retest Reliability of the Persian Version Behzad S. Khorashad1 • Simon Baron-Cohen2 • Ghasem M. Roshan3 Mojtaba Kazemian4 • Ladan Khazai5 • Zahra Aghili6 • Ali Talaei7 • Mozhgan Afkhamizadeh8 • Ó Springer Science+Business Media New York 2015 Abstract The psychometric properties of the Persian ‘‘Reading the Mind in the Eyes’’ test were investigated, so were the predictions from the Empathizing–Systemizing theory of psychological sex differences. Adults aged 16–69 years old (N = 545, female = 51.7 %) completed the test online. The analysis of items showed them to be generally acceptable. Test–retest reliability, as measured by Intra-class correlation coefficient, was 0.735 with a 95 % CI of (0.514, 0.855). The percentage of agreement for each item in the test–retest was satisfactory and the mean difference between test–retest scores was -0.159 (SD = 3.42). However, the internal consistency of Persian version, calculated by Cronbach’s alpha (0.371), was poor. Females scored significantly higher than males but academic degree and field of study had no significant effect. Keywords Theory of mind Reading the Mind in the Eyes test Reliability Persian Empathy Sex differences & Simon Baron-Cohen [email protected] 3 Evolution and Human Behaviour Group, Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences Research Centre, Mashhad University of Medical Sciences, No. 101, 4th Fl., Daneshju 19st, 9188977361 Mashhad, Iran 4 Mojtaba Kazemian [email protected] Evolution and Human Behaviour Group, Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences Research Centre, Mashhad University of Medical Sciences, No. 9, Motahari Shomali 41st, 9193974567 Mashhad, Iran 5 Ladan Khazai [email protected] Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, University of Miami, Unit 1221, 100 Lincoln Rd., Miamibeach, FL 33139, USA 6 Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences Research Centre, Mashhad University of Medical Sciences, Unit 4, No. 134, Asrar 1st, Daneshgah Av., Mashhad, Iran 7 Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences Research Centre, Mashhad University of Medical Sciences, Bu-Ali Sq., Amel Blvd., Mashhad, Iran 8 Department of Endocrinology, Imam Reza Hospital, Mashhad University of Medical Sciences, Imam Reza Sq., Mashhad, Iran Introduction Emotion recognition has been defined as ‘‘the ability to read subtle cues indicating the emotional state of another person’’ (Baron-Cohen and Wheelwright 2004). These cues can be visual and verbal, both revealing an internal emotional state. Emotion recognition is part of a broader set of cognitive capabilities for analyzing the clues on beliefs and desires of conspecifics which is called social cognition. The ability to use such social cues is sometimes referred to as employing a ‘‘theory of mind’’ (henceforth ToM); the Behzad S. Khorashad [email protected] Ghasem M. Roshan [email protected] Zahra Aghili [email protected] 1 2 Evolution and Human Behaviour Group, Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences Research Centre, Mashhad University of Medical Sciences, No. 17, Toufigh 9 Lane, Shahid Sadeghi Blv., 91858-84714 Mashhad, Iran Autism Research Centre, Department of Psychiatry, Cambridge University, Douglas House, 18B Trumpington Rd., Cambridge CB2 8AH, UK 123 J Autism Dev Disord capability to attribute mental states to the self and to others in order to predict behaviour (Premack and Woodruff 1978; Apperly et al. 2006; Samson 2009). It is a core aspect of cognition in the social evolution of human and non-human primates and is key for success in social interaction. Fluency in this ability confers social and vocational advantages (Begeer et al. 2010; Bender et al. 2012; Peterson et al. 2007; Woolley et al. 2010). On the other side, deficits in emotion recognition may lead to serious interpersonal and social difficulties. Several studies have found that conditions such as autism, schizophrenia and anorexia nervosa, involve a difficulty in recognizing another’s state of mind (BaronCohen 1995; Lind et al. 2014). Therefore, there have been numerous studies in recent years attempting to design an instrument for measuring atypical, as well as typical, variations in emotion recognition and social cognition. The ‘‘Reading the Mind in the Eyes test’’ (hereafter the Eyes test) is one such measure, which due to its simplicity, has been widely used. The first version of Eyes test was an effort towards developing an adult test for detecting subtle individual differences in the ability of ‘mind reading’ (Baron-Cohen et al. 1997). The task involved looking at the pictures of strangers’ faces and choosing which of two words that best describes what the person in the picture is feeling or thinking. In order to improve the test’s psychometric properties, it was revised by the same team (BaronCohen et al. 2001a). The revised version has 36 pictures of the eye region of males and females, and the participants have to choose one of the four words that best describes the mental state of the person in picture. Each correctly answered item is awarded one point and each incorrectly answered or unanswered item is scored as zero. The final score is sum of all acquired points. The English version of revised Eyes test has been translated into many languages, including Turkish (Yildirim et al. 2011), Spanish (Fernandez-Abascal et al. 2013), Japanese (Kunihira et al. 2006), German (Pfaltz et al. 2013), Swedish (Hallerback et al. 2009), French (Prevost et al. 2014) and Italian (Vellante et al. 2013); all available for free at www.autismresearchcentre.com/arc_ tests. It has also been translated into Persian and used in some studies (Nejati et al. 2012). The psychometric aspects of the Persian version, however, have never been tested in an independent systematic study. Therefore, one aim of the present study is to evaluate the psychometric properties of the Persian Eyes test. Eyes Test and Empathizing–Systemizing Theory The Eyes test, originally developed as a sensitive measure of subtle cognitive deficits in individuals with autism spectrum conditions (ASC), correlates with scores on the self-report Empathy Quotient (EQ) in the general 123 population (Baron-Cohen 2010). Empathizing is defined as the drive to identify another’s mental states and to respond to these with an appropriate emotion (Baron-Cohen et al. 2003). Empathy encompasses two components: cognitive empathy, which is the capacity to recognize what someone else believes or feels (the same ToM); and affective empathy, which is the capacity to experience an appropriate emotion in response to someone else’s thoughts and feelings. EQ is negatively correlated to the Systemizing Quotient (SQ). Systemizing is defined as the drive to analyze and construct rule-based systems (Baron-Cohen et al. 2003; Wheelwright et al. 2006; Wheelwright et al. 2006). It involves identifying the ‘‘input-operation-output’’ rules that govern and predict how a system behaves. Systemizing is an algorithmic process: understanding systems in a relatively finite and closed fashion (Lai et al. 2012). It is, therefore, reasonable to expect Eyes test scores to be high whenever the SQ is low and EQ is high and vice versa. There are some studies supporting this notion. In a study of the psychometrics of the Italian version of the Eyes test, Vellante et al. (2013) found that performance of typical participants on the EQ is correlated with their score on the Eyes test. Baron-Cohen et al. (2003) reported that people with high-functioning autism or Asperger Syndrome, whose ability in theory of mind is impaired, score higher on the SQ compared to general population. Auyeung et al. (2009) reported that children with ASC scored significantly lower on the EQ, and significantly higher on the SQ, compared to typical samples. Grove et al. (2014) found that weak performance on the Eyes test is related to EQ in children with ASC and their relatives in comparison to typical individuals. Chapman et al. (2006), in an attempt to reveal the origins of differences in empathy, studied prenatal testosterone and EQ and Eyes test scores and found a negative correlation between fetal androgens and both measures. These studies, in harmony with the Empathizing-Systemizing Theory (E–S theory) (Baron-Cohen 2010), suggest that people can be classified based on their EQ and SQ along two dimensions of Empathizing and Systemizing. According to E–S theory, five types of cognitive style are defined: Type E (EQ [ SQ), Type S (SQ [ EQ), Type B (SQ = EQ), Extreme Type S (SQ EQ) and Extreme Type E (EQ SQ). This E–S discrepancy is reflected in the academic interests of students. Several studies have found that students in different academic fields have different EQ and SQ profiles (Billington et al. 2007). Individuals interested in fields of sciences that are about lawful systems such as mathematics, engineering, computer sciences and the natural sciences are more likely to have a profile of Type S or extreme Type S, whereas individuals in the humanities and social sciences show the opposite pattern (Billington et al. 2007; Focquaert et al. 2007; Manson and Winterbottom 2011). Considering the correlation J Autism Dev Disord between performance in Eyes test and EQ/SQ, we predicted our participants in the humanities and medicine to score significantly higher than those in science and engineering on the Eyes test. Eyes Test and Gender Performance on the Eyes test has been widely demonstrated to show sex differences, with females scoring higher than males. However this advantage has been variable from small to large in different studies, with Cohen’s d ranging from 0.22 to 0.94 (Vellante et al. 2013). There are also some studies that reported no sex difference (Ahmed and Stephen 2011). Similar difference have been observed in the EQ and SQ: females on average have higher EQ and males have higher SQ (Baron-Cohen 2010). Given these differences, one might speculate that fields of sciences and engineering might be more attractive for males, and medicine and humanities more attractive for females. The Persian Eyes Test As noted earlier the Eyes test has been translated into Persian and used as a measure of theory of mind in some studies of the Iranian population, however, its validity and reliability has not been studied independently. The main aim of the present study is to do so. However, as Vellante et al. (2013) point out, there is no gold standard for the validity of Eyes test to be measured against. Consequently, different authors have used various strategies to validate translated versions of Eyes test. Prevost et al. for instance, investigated the validity of French Eyes test by comparing it with its English original version. The authors ‘‘found that distributions are similar in the English and the French versions, and the mean total scores were not different between the Francophone and the Anglophone populations, suggesting that the translation exhibited a satisfactory validity’’ (Prevost et al. 2014). It should be noted, however, that although consistency among various translations can be taken as supporting evidence for the validity of test, any difference found in cross-cultural studies does not necessarily refute the validity of translations. There is considerable amount of research showing that cultural backgrounds can significantly influence aspects of social cognition (Mason and Morris 2010) including theory of mind (Shahaeian et al. 2011) and even performance on the Eyes test (Adams et al. 2010). The present study aimed at investigating the psychometrics of a Persian version of the Eyes test and exploring the effect of culture on participants’ performance on this test. Due to the inherent difficulties in validation of such a test, our strategy was to compare the results of our Persian Eyes test to other validating studies. Using E–S theory, we make predictions concerning the way performance in Eyes test would correlate with academic degree and field of study. Our hypotheses were as follows: (1) We expected the Persian Eyes test to be reliable based on the conventional statistical analysis (see below). (2) We expected that each item of the Persian Eyes test would be adequately difficult and discriminant among participants (see Method). (3) We expected that females would perform significantly better than males on the Eyes test. (4) We expected that those studying medicine and humanities would score significantly higher than those studying sciences and engineering. (5) We expect that performance on the Eyes test would not be correlated with academic degree. (6) Finally, we expect our results to be relatively similar to findings of other studies. Since we do not have access to the detailed results of other studies (the score of each participant) we cannot determine whether our results (for example, mean scores) are statistically different or not from other studies. However, we expected to replicate the general findings. This will be examined for the mean score and also each item, separately. Methods Translation The Eyes test has been translated into Persian several times, none of which were satisfactory in our opinion. We came to the conclusion that some of chosen terms for target words or foils were not accurate and might be confusing for Persian participants. Since the accuracy of translations is critical for the Eyes test to reliably measure ToM, we created our own Persian translation. In order to so, we used the forward–backward translation method (Guillemin et al. 1993). First, eight experts in English literature translated the original test into Persian, and then one professional translator translated the Persian version back into English. Once the translations were returned, they were sent to a third expert, a Professor in English literature, to check the translations. She was instructed to confirm whether the target and foils of each item has been properly translated, and if not, why not. She was also requested to propose her alternative for each word, explaining its advantage over the previous one. Finally, the authors chose the appropriate word, considering the available options and recommendations of the third expert. All the translators were native Iranians. In addition, the glossary of the original test was translated into Persian (by the third translator) and attached to the Persian version so the participants could check the meaning of words that were unfamiliar to them. 123 J Autism Dev Disord Procedure The Eyes test was designed as an online test using www. kwiksurvey.com, the premium version which is for online surveys and available for free. Before the Eyes test begins, participants completed a socio-demographic questionnaire that included questions about age, gender, field of study, and the highest completed academic degree. Participants were asked to provide their email address. They were told that a personalized report of results would be sent to them via their email, if they provided their email address. It was thought that this would motivate participants. Hence, although providing email address was optional, those not providing email address and gender identity were excluded from the study. A written description explaining to participants how to answer the questionnaire and that this is a newly designed measure of ‘‘theory of mind, a key ability in social interaction’’ was attached to the test. The test was distributed online via email and social networks. Specifically, we used social virtual groups in Facebook, Google Plus and Twitter designed for the Perspolice FC Fans page, the Esteghlal FC Fan page and the Sepahan Fans Page which are the three most popular football teams in Iran’s Premier football League. The Eyes test followed the format of the standard version of the test (Baron-Cohen et al. 2001a, b) and was designed so that at any one time participants were presented with a single image on a blank background, along with four options on the left side of the picture, simultaneously (see Fig. 1). It was instructed that there is no time limitation for participants and they should choose the answer they believe best describes what the person in each photo was thinking or feeling. The translated glossary was available for all participants to use in order to avoid difficulties with words. The study began in October, 2012. Data collection lasted for 3 months. In order to evaluate the test–retest reliability, a subgroup of participants was invited to answer the test again 1 year later, in the October, 2013 following the same procedure. Another 3-month interval was given for retest. N = 44 participants agreed to complete the Eyes test twice. The study finished in January, 2014. Participants A total of 545 participants took part. The sample comprised of N = 282 women (51.7 %) and N = 263 men, with a mean age of 25.8 (SD 6.21; range 16 to 69). All participants were volunteers who were invited and participated online. They were all Iranians living inside Iran. There was no fee or other incentive for taking part in the study. The research project conformed to the 1995 Declaration of Helsinki and received ethical approval from Mashhad University of Medical Sciences Ethics Committee. Statistical Analysis The Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) version 11.5 (SPSS Inc., Chicago, IL, USA) was used to analyze the data. The scores of Eyes test was calculated using the sum across all items or across items considered acceptable (see below). To evaluate the normality of value, descriptive statistics and the Kolmogorov–Smirnov test was used. Mann–Whitney U-test and Kruskal–Wallis test were used to assess the influence of gender, field of study, age and academic degree in the Eyes test. Test–retest reliability analysis of Eyes test was based on a sub-sample of N = 44 participants completing the test twice, 1 year later. The internal consistency was evaluated using Cronbach’s Alpha. The association of test and retest scores was evaluated using Intra-class Correlation Coefficient (ICC) and Spearman’s rank correlation coefficient. We used an established approach (Hallerback et al. 2009) in using the Bland–Altman method to assess test–retest reliability (Bland and Altman 1986). In addition, following the procedure used by Hutchins (Hutchins et al. 2008), we assessed the agreement value for each item separately by calculating the percentage agreement (proportion of cases in which participants selected either target or foil at both time points). An agreement value of at least 70 % was considered as a criterion for acceptable retest reliability. Item Analysis Fig. 1 An example of Persian Eyes test items 123 Item analysis is used to evaluate the statistical property of participants’ responses to an individual test item. Most of the studies, investigating the psychometrics of Eyes test, followed the conventional two conditions for validating items (Baron-Cohen et al. 2001a, b). Items were considered to be of satisfactory difficulty if (First Condition) at least 50 % of participants selected the target word and (Second Condition) no more than 25 % of participants selected one of the foils. However, the low percentage of target-choosing participants J Autism Dev Disord in some questions may not be due to the unreliability of item, but, as noted (Vellante et al. 2013), it may be due to its difficulty and its ‘‘lower margin for differentiation’’. Similarly, items that are chosen by the majority of participants are not necessarily valid either: they may be easy enough to be answered correctly by most participants. To address this problem, we computed the difficulty and discrimination coefficient of each item in order to test if it yields the necessary degree of reliability and validity (Linda and Algina 2006). We also assumed that a reliable and valid item would be able to appropriately distinct between those with a higher score and those with a lower score on Eyes test. Based on Kelley (Kelley 1939), we defined the higher score and lower score groups as the upper 27 % and the lower 27 % of participants, ordered according to their final score on Eyes test. These two groups were compared to each other based on how they answered each item. Difficulty Coefficient The difficulty of an item is measured by the proportion of the persons who answer a test item correctly. The higher this proportion is the lower would be the item’s difficulty. The very easy and the very difficult items lead to whether all examinees selecting the correct answer or selecting the answer by absolute chance. In neither case, the test can discriminate various abilities of facial affect recognition among participants. To calculate the difficulty of an item the number of participants who answered it correctly is divided by the total number of participants who answered it. This proportion is indicated by the letter p, which indicates the difficulty of the item (Linda and Algina 2006). It is calculated by the following formula: Pi ¼ Ai =Ni 100 ð1Þ where Pi = difficulty index of item i; Ai = number of correct answers in upper 27 % and lower 27 % groups of participants; Ni = The sum of number of those in upper 27 % and lower 27 % groups. Difficulty levels are classified in the following way: very difficult (p \ 30 %); moderately difficult (31 % \ p \ 50 %); medium difficulty (51 % \ p \ 70 %); moderately easy (71 % \ p \ 90 %); and very easy (p [ 90 %). The ideal distribution of items, based on their difficulty, would be as follows: 5 % very difficult, 20 % moderately difficult, 50 % medium difficult, 20 % moderately easy and 5 % very easy. The mean Di of all items should be around 50–60 % (Zainudin et al. 2012). Discrimination Coefficient The purpose of many tests is to provide information about individual differences. Therefore, the items of a valid and reliable test must be able to appropriately differentiate between participants who are relatively strong from those who are relatively weak. In many cases, such as Eyes test, there is no gold standard to compare the test with, and there is only the total score of the test itself. The goal, in such situations, is to discover items for which high-scoring participants have a high probability of answering them correctly and low-grading participants have a low probability of answering them correctly. These items would be able to discriminate those participants who know the material from those who do not (Linda and Algina 2006). The Index of Discrimination is used here as a strategy to investigate the validity of items in measuring various abilities in emotion recognition. It is calculated through the following formula: Di ¼ ðPu Pl Þ 100 ð2Þ where Di: index of discrimination of item i; Pu: the proportion of those in upper 27 % group who correctly scored item i (chose the target word); Pl: the proportion of those in lower 27 % group who correctly scored item i. Based on a simulation (Linda and Algina 2006), Ebel and Frisbie offered the following guidelines to interpret the D values: D [ 39 = Excellent; 39 [ D [ 30 = Good; 29 [ D [ 20 = Mediocre; 19 [ D [ 0 = Poor; -1 [ D = Worst. We used the same guideline in this study. Results Socio-Demographic Data The final sample included N = 545 participants (females = 51.7 %). The mean age of the sample was 25.8 years (SD = 6.17, Min = 16, Max = 69), with no significant sex differences in age (males: 25.3 ± 6.2; females: 25.2 ± 6.05; U = 33,545, p = 0.425). Of all participants, N = 503 answered the question that asked for their field of study, among whom 29.4 % (N = 160) had studied engineering, 19.4 % (N = 106) sciences, 26.8 % (N = 146) humanities and 16.7 % (N = 91) of them had studied medicine. The distribution of academic degree among our participants was as follows: Diploma 7.3 % (N = 40), Bachelor 47.9 (N = 261), Master 23.9 (N = 130), Doctor of Medicine 16.7 % (N = 91) and Ph.D 4.2 % (N = 23). There was no gender differences in having an academic degree (Diploma: male = 8.3 %, female = 6.0 %, p = 0.30; Bachelor: male = 48 %, female = 47 %, p = 0.725; Masters: male = 24.4 %, female = 23.0 %, p = 0.650; Ph.D: male = 4.5 %, females = 4 %, p = 0.701; Doctor of Medicine: males = 14.4 %, females = 18 %, p = 0.251). However, significant sex differences were detected in field of study. A significantly higher proportion of females had 123 J Autism Dev Disord Table 1 Distribution of responses to Eyes test in percentages Item Test 1 2 3 4 Q1 53.8 23.1 20.4 2.8 Q2 19.6 72.1 5.3 Q3 2.2 3.3 Q4 9.4 Q5 Item Test 1 2 3 4 Q19 4.2 16.1 9.9 69.7 2.9 Q20 3.7 91.4 4.4 0.6 53.4 41.1 Q21 21.3 56.1 21.8 0.8 63.7 17.4 9.5 Q22 80.7 1.7 7 10.6 32.5 8.8 58.2 0.6 Q23 2.9 2.2 51.9 42.9 Q6 10.8 78.3 8.4 2.4 Q24 64.6 29.4 1.7 4.4 Q7 3.1 38.7 18.7 39.4 Q25 7.3 32.5 20.9 39.3 Q8 72.7 20.2 1.7 5.5 Q26 4.4 2.8 78 14.9 Q9 20.4 6.8 11.7 61.1 Q27 0.7 47.5 30.1 21.7 Q10 43.9 26.8 13.8 15.6 Q28 47 7 11.4 34.7 Q11 9.9 22 52.1 16 Q29 12.5 30.6 18.7 38.2 Q12 16.1 0.9 74.3 8.6 Q30 6.2 86.8 5.7 1.3 Q13 64 4.2 2.9 28.8 Q31 4.4 58.3 10.6 26.6 Q14 3.3 1.8 1.3 93.6 Q32 79.1 5.1 9.7 6.1 Q15 80.7 2.8 10.5 6.1 Q33 2.6 26.1 4.8 66.6 Q16 13.4 59.4 3.9 23.3 Q34 5 17.1 65.1 12.8 Q17 57.8 27.9 1.7 12.7 Q35 28.8 53 5 13.2 Q18 82.4 6.2 5.1 6.2 Q36 1.5 4 68.6 25.9 Correctly identified descriptors are marked in bold The highlighted items have failed to fulfill either first condition or second condition studied humanities (33.3 % in comparison to males = 19.3 %, p \ 0.0001), and a significantly lower percentage of them had studied engineering (20 % in comparison to males = 39.4 %, p \ 0.0001). There was no significant sex differences in those studied medicine (males = 14.8 %, females = 18.4, p = 0.254) or sciences (males = 17.4 %, females = 21.2 %, p = 0.264). Distribution of Responses The mean score of all participants was 22.76 (SD = 3.41, min = 9, max = 31). Table 1 indicates the 123 responses of all items of the Eyes test and the percentage of participants who chose them. This had been used as an index of item difficulty by most studies (Baron-Cohen et al. 2001a, b) in which items were considered to be of satisfactory difficulty if at least 50 % of participants selected the target word and of no more than 25 % of participants selected one of the foils. In 6 items, the first condition was not met (7, 10, 25, 27, 28, 29) and in 15 items the second condition was not met (3, 5, 7, 10, 13, 17, 23, 24, 25, 27, 28, 29, 33, 35, 36). This was similar to other studies of the Eyes test in other countries. J Autism Dev Disord Table 2 A comparison of the percentage of participants who chose the target in different version of the eyes test Item Persian Italian (Vellante et al. 2013) German (Pfaltz et al. 2013) French (Prevost et al. 2014) Spanish (FernandezAbascal et al. 2013) English (BaronCohen et al. 2001b) Q1 53.8 69.5 65.8 84 66.9 85.2 Q2 72.1 56 49.4 70 63.8 78.7 Q3 53.4 65 85.1 93 75.2 86.1 Q4 63.7 65.5 74.2 54 81.1 73 Q5 58.2 84 64.5 71 92.5 77 Q6 78.3 69 72.9 80 75.2 80.3 Q7 Q8 18.7 72.7 42.5 67 49 77.4 33 68 64.6 88 68 67.2 Q9 61.1 90.5 78.6 81 81.9 77 Q10 43.9 63.5 76 60 71 73 Q11 52.1 71 74.3 57 74.1 68 Q12 74.3 71.5 87.7 75 80.8 87.7 Q13 64 63.5 55.8 34 80.8 69.7 Q14 93.6 80 73.4 85 88.9 80.3 Q15 80.7 83 84.5 84 86.9 69.7 Q16 59.4 76 76 79 85.8 77 Q17 57.8 54 50.3 48 54.3 65.6 Q18 82.4 92 81.9 86 96.4 58.2 Q19 69.7 52.5 57.4 43 39 69.7 Q20 91.4 73.5 81.3 92 89.4 88.5 Q21 56.1 73 39.4 86 75.2 73.8 Q22 Q23 80.7 51.9 90.5 62.5 72.9 61.7 87 37 70.8 65.5 79.5 77.9 Q24 64.6 58.5 57.4 84 73.5 73.8 Q25 39.3 67 42.6 76 70.5 71.3 Q26 78 76.5 78.1 68 75.2 65.6 Q27 47.5 63 67.1 49 64.1 65.6 Q28 47 70 63.9 73 83.6 66.4 Q29 38.2 66.5 69 66 81.1 77.9 Q30 86.8 91 86.5 80 88.6 91 Q31 58.3 66.5 32.3 69 57.1 51.6 Q32 79.1 73 66.5 80 78 50 Q33 66.6 54 77.4 60 61.3 58.2 Q34 65.1 71 71 63 72.1 77 Q35 53 36.5 60.6 47 77.7 65.6 Q36 68.6 76.5 85.8 71 87.5 76.2 Mean 22.76 24.85 24.5 24.8 27.18 26.2 The italicized items have failed to fulfil the first condition in Persian Eyes test Validity Comparison of Items Among Different Studies To assess the validity of the new Persian version of Eyes test, we compared it with other non-English versions of Eyes test. Table 2 shows a comparison of the percentage of participants choosing the target word in different studies. The italicized items failed to fulfill the first condition of item difficulty (Baron-Cohen et al. 2001a, b). Since we lacked the detailed data of other studies, we could not investigate whether the differences among various studies are statistically significant or not. However, the mere observation of percentage of target-choosing participants may be 123 J Autism Dev Disord fruitful. Among the highlighted items of Table 2 (items 7, 10, 25, 27, 28 and 29), three (items 7, 25 and 27) had failed to fulfil the first condition in similar studies (Table 3). Item Analysis Item analysis of the Persian Eyes test showed that most items are sufficiently difficult and discriminant. Except item 9, all the items could significantly differentiate those in upper 27 percentile from those in lower 27. This was specifically interesting in some items. For instance item 7, which was correctly answered only by 18.7 % of participants could differentiate the upper and lower 27 percentiles with considerable accuracy (p B 0.001), but item 9, answered correctly by 61.1 % of participants, was not significantly different between skillful and unskillful mind readers. This was also true considering the discrimination index. Most of the items had mediocre to excellent discriminant coefficients. According to our guideline (Zainudin et al. 2012), eight items had poor Di: 9, 13, 14, 20, 23, 24, 27 and 29. Interestingly, items 9, 13, 14, 20, 23 and 24 had been answered correctly by more than 50 % of participants. One item (item 26) had an excellent Di, eleven items (items 3, 8, 15, 17, 18, 21, 22, 28, 33, 35, 36) had a good Di, and sixteen items (items 1,2, 4, 5, 6, 7, 10, 11, 12, 16, 19, 25, 30, 31, 32, 34) had a mediocre Di. The mean difficulty coefficient of all items was 62.49 %, which is desirable for a test. The distribution of items, based on their difficulty, was also appropriate. 3 % of items were very difficult (item 7), 3 % were very easy (item 14), 17 % were moderately difficult (items 3,10, 25, 27, 28 and 29), 27 % were moderately easy (items 2, 6, 12, 15, 18, 20, 22, 26, 30 and 32) and 50 % had a medium difficulty (items 1,4, 5, 8, 9, 11, 13, 16, 17, 19, 21, 23, 24, 31, 33, 34, 35 and 36). Table 4 shows the index of difficulty and index of discrimination for each item. Fig. 2 The Bland–Altman plot of two Eyes test assessments Internal consistency, measured by Cronbach’s alpha, was 0.371 with a 95 % CI from 0.293 to 0.444. the Spearman’s rank correlation coefficient, and as expected we found a significantly positive correlation between the scores (rs = 0.642, p \ 0.001). Test–retest reliability of the Eyes test was also evaluated using Intraclass Correlation Coefficient. The ICC for total scores was 0.735 with a 95 % CI of (0.514, 0.855). Also, based on Hutchins et al. (2008), we calculated the percentage agreement of each item separately in order to assess the reliability of Eyes test (Table 5). We found that twelve items (items 1, 10, 11, 16, 21, 24, 25, 27, 28, 29, 31 and 35) failed to fulfil Hutchins’s criterion of acceptable reliability (agreement percentage [ 70 %). However, ten items of these twelve had an agreement percentage more than 60 %, and item 24 percentage was 54 %. The only item that had an agreement percentage less than 50 % was item 29 (47.7 %). As an additional measure of agreement, the Bland– Altman approach was used (Bland and Altman 1986). The mean difference was -0.159 (SD = 3.42). The upper limit of agreement was 6.56 with 95 % confidence interval 4.6–8.52. The lower limit of agreement was -6.88 with 95 % confidence interval ranging from -4.92 to -8.84. The Bland–Altman plot is shown in Fig. 2. Test–Retest Reliability Gender Differences N = 44 participants performed the test twice. Their mean score was 23.80 (SD = 3.92) at the test and 23.95 (SD = 3.56) at the retest. Using two related sample Wilcoxon Signed Ranks test, we found no significant difference between the two scores (p = 0.709). To examine the relation between the scores in test and retest, we calculated Females on average performed better than males. Females’ mean score on the Eyes test was 23.13 (SD = 3.16), which in comparison with male’s mean score (22.43, SD = 3.63), was significantly higher (U = 33,583, p = 0.016). In addition, as shown in Table 6, the percentage of males and females who chose the target for each item was calculated. Reliability Analysis Internal Consistency 123 J Autism Dev Disord The Chi square test was used to determine if there is any item in which males’ and females’ performance was significantly different. Females did better on items 13, 18, 20 and 23, whereas males performed better in items 1, 4 and 25. The target in the items 13, 18, 20 and 23 is anticipating, decisive, friendly and defiant whereas the target in items 1, 4 and 25 is playful, insisting and interested. Academic Degree and Field of Study The mean and standard deviation of groups with different fields of study and with different academic degrees is depicted in Table 7. The best performance among various academic fields and degrees occurred in Medicine and Diploma subgroups, respectively. Different groups with different academic fields and degrees were compared to determine if there is any significant difference among them. Using the Kruskal– Wallis test, no significant differences were detected either among different field of studies (p = 0.235) or among different academic degrees (p = 0.076). However, comparing the mean score of those studied medicine (N = 91) with all the others (N = 412) showed a significant advantage among medical doctors (U = 17,612, p = 0.026). No other significant difference was obtained in any comparison among different fields of study and different academic degrees. The possible effects of academic degree and field of study were also examined in males and females separately and independently. The Kruskal–Wallis test was used, and no significant difference was found among groups. Finally we tested whether exclusion of any item would alter the found differences in performances of different subgroups (sex, academic field and degree) or not. The criteria, based on which, we excluded items were those we had used to investigate the psychometrics of Eyes test: Percentage of Agreement between test and retest (Agreement) (Hutchins et al. 2008), discrimination of those in upper and lower 27th percentiles, and the conventional two conditions (Baron-Cohen et al. 2001a, b). The items that failed to fill each criterion were recognized and excluded separately and then all the descriptive statistics and analyses were performed again. Table 8 compares the consequences of applying each strategy to examine the reliability of Eyes test. The internal consistency of the Eyes test was not improved no matter which criterion used for exclusion. Neither were the differences among subgroups when the exclusion criteria were Percentage of Agreement, discrimination of those in upper and lower 27th percentiles and the first condition. However when items which had failed the second condition were excluded the difference among sexes disappeared (p = 0.761). Discussion Our study assessed the psychometric properties and test– retest reliability of the Persian Eyes test. In order to so, 545 participants were invited using electronic mail and social networks. It was supposed that this sampling would lead to a more demographically varied and more populated sample in comparison to previous studies which mostly studied the Eyes test among university students. For instance, Vellante et al. (2013) investigated 200 undergraduate students attending the University of Cagliari, Pfaltz et al. (2013) studied 155 students from University of Basel, and Fernandez-Abascal et al. (2013) examined the test among 358 first-year psychology undergraduates enrolled at the Universidad Nacional de Educacio´n a Distancia (UNED, Spain). In addition, our sample size was considerably larger than most of similar studies. Yildirim et al. study (2011) of the Turkish Eyes test sampled their participants from general population (N = 130). The internal consistency of Eyes test, measured by Chronbach’s alpha, was relatively poor in our Persian version of Eyes test, as well as in most the similar studies (Vellante et al. 2013). Voracek and Dressler (2006) found that Cronbach’s alpha was 0.63 in men and 0.60 in women. Harkness et al. (2010) found Cronbach’s alpha 0.58 in a sample including 93 college students. According to Prevost et al. (2014) the Chronbach’s alpha of French version of Eyes test was 0.53, while the Italian version’s has been 0.60 based on Vellante et al. (2013). Our version’s alpha was 0.371 which is equally weak. Some authors have suggested that the limits of internal consistency of Eyes test are more likely originated in the inherent variability of facial affect recognition abilities among population rather than the translations (Prevost et al. 2014). This is also supported by this fact that excluding any item(s), no matter based on what criterion, did not improve the internal consistency of test (Table 8). Test–retest reliability of Eyes test has been investigated in different studies using different approaches and with different intervals. For Persian version, the Intra-class Correlation Coefficient, the percentage agreement of items in test and retest, the Bland–Altman plot and the Spearman’s rank correlation coefficient of mean scores in test and retest were calculated. The retesting was 1 year after the test. This time interval is longer than most studies where retesting took place from 1 week (French, German and Turkish) to 1 month (Italian) to 1 year (Spanish). The results were generally satisfactory, indicating that there was no learning effect among our participants after 1 year. The ICC for total score of Persian eyes test (0.735) was higher than Turkish (0.65) and Spanish (0.63) studies, and lower than the Italian’s (0.833). As in Swedish (in which 123 J Autism Dev Disord the Pearson correlation between the scores of Eyes test the first and second time was r = 0.60, p \ 0.01) and Spanish studies (in which the Spearman Rho correlation between test and retest for each was positive and significant except item 18), the test and retest total scores of Persian Eyes test, as well as each item, were positively and significantly correlated (Vellante et al. 2013; FernandezAbascal et al. 2013; Hallerback et al. 2009). Taking the Bland–Altman approach, we could demonstrate that most responses on all items were consistent from test to retest, mean differences were 0 and most differences fell with 95 % CI. According to the plot, any individual result can vary in the range of ±6 out of 36 when the test is repeated. As Hallerback et al. (2009) emphasized, this means that any obtained test score must be regarded as an approximation. Percentage of agreement between the participant’s performance in test and retest was also measured for each item (Table 5). Following the procedure used by others (Hutchins et al. 2008), the minimum accepted value of agreement was considered to be 70 %. Based on this criterion, 11 items (items 9, 10, 11, 16, 21, 24, 25, 27, 28, 29, 31 and 35) failed to achieve the acceptable reliability, among these item 29 was the only item in which less than 50 % of participants selected the same answer twice; item 24 was answered in the same way by 54 % and all the other ten items had been answered by more than 60 % and less than 70 % of participants. This is in concordance with results of German (10 items), Turkish (19 items) and Swedish (8 items out of 28 items) studies. Items 16, 21, 29 and 31 failed to fulfill the 70 % criterion in both the Persian and German studies, as well as items 9, 10, 21, 24, 27, 28 and 31 in both Persian and Turkish version. Since the Swedish study had used the child version of Eyes test, it was not possible to identify the shared failing items. Considering all of these together it seems that the reliability of Persian Eyes test is as acceptable as other studies. In addition, as Table 8 shows, the exclusion of items that failed to fulfill the 70 % criterion (Hutchins et al. 2008), did not change either the internal consistency of the Eyes test or any of the results. The validity of Eyes test, as different authors have previously mentioned, is difficult to investigate since there is no gold standard to be used (Hallerback et al. 2009; Prevost et al. 2014). In order to solve this problem, we developed two strategies to validate the Persian version: First, to compare the results of Persian Eyes test as a whole, as well as its each item, to similar studies investigating the psychometrics of Eyes test. Second, to analyze each item of Persian Eyes test according to discrimination and difficulty indices. Comparing the Persian Eyes test to other versions showed that our results were weaker compared to other 123 studies. As previously mentioned, in our sample, the target word in 6 items (Items 7, 10, 25, 27, 28 and 29) was selected by less than 50 % (the first condition). In the French version (Prevost et al. 2014) seven items (Items 7, 13, 17, 19, 23, 27 and 35), in the German version (Pfaltz et al. 2013) five items (items 2, 7, 21, 25 and 31), in the Turkish version (Yildirim et al. 2011) four items (Items 19 and 21, plus items 25 and 35 that had been excluded during the pilot study), in the Italian version (Vellante et al. 2013) two items (items 7 and 35) and in the Spanish version (Fernandez-Abascal et al. 2013) just one item (item 19) had the same condition. Consistently, the number of items in other versions of Eyes test in which some foils were selected by more than 25 % of participants (the second condition), were similar to ours. In the French version 10 items (items 4, 7, 11, 13, 17, 19, 23, 27, 34 and 35), in the German version 6 items (items 2, 7, 13, 17, 19, 24 and 35), in the Turkish version 4 items (items 17, 19, 21 and 23), in the Italian version 7 items (items 3, 4, 7, 17, 19, 24 and 35) and in the Spanish version 4 items (items 17, 19, 31 and 33) failed to meet that criteria, as did 13 items of the Persian Eyes test (items 3, 5, 7, 10, 13, 17, 23, 24, 25, 27, 28, 29 and 33). It should be noted, however, that in comparison to other studies our sample size was clearly larger and, also, demographically more varied (see above). Thus the wider range of scores and the lower mean score, alongside the less acceptable items (in terms of fulfilling the first and second conditions) in our results may reflect the more diverse strata of general population participated in our study. In addition, there are similarities in the list of problematic items among different studies. For example item 7 failed to meet the first condition in the French (33 %), German (49 %), Italian (42.5 %) and Persian (18.7 %)1 studies, and item 17, failed to meet the second condition in the Persian (27.9 % of participants chose the foil ‘‘affectionate’’), German (40 % chose the foil ‘‘affectionate’’), French (39 % chose the foil ‘‘affectionate’’), Italian (32 % chose the foil ‘‘affectionate’’) and Spanish (27.3 % chose the foil ‘‘affectionate’’) studies. Seemingly, participants tend to mistake ‘‘affectionate’’ to ‘‘doubtful’’ regardless of their language or nationality. More interestingly, Persian participants had chosen the foils 2 (friendly) and 4 (dispirited) in the item 7 considerably more frequent than foil 1 (apologetic); this is similar to how Italians (25.2 % for foil 2 and 10 % for foil 4), French (39 % for foil 2 and 16 % for foil 4), Germans (22.2 % for foil 2 and 15 % for foil 4) and Turkish (12 % for foil 2 and 23.9 % for foil 4) had answered item 7. Examples such as item 7 show that though there are differences in percentage of participants 1 The number in the parenthesis is percentage of participants choosing the target in item 7 in each study. J Autism Dev Disord answering to Eyes test, the overall pattern of answering is highly similar between various studies. Other items happened to be problematic in some and not others; such as item 19 which is problematic in Italian, French and Spanish studies but not in Persian and German studies. Instead of translational errors or cultural differences, such similarities point to inherent features of items which make them difficult for various participants. An analytic comparison of each item between different versions of Eyes test in future studies seems to be very crucial to illuminate the nature of these similarities and differences. Another aspect of comparing Persian Eyes test to other versions is the possible differences among subgroups of participants. First, men scored significantly worse than females, echoing the frequently replicated advantage of females over males (Hallerback et al. 2009; Baron-Cohen et al. 1997; Vellante et al. 2013; Yildirim et al. 2011). This can be taken as supporting the validity of the Persian Eyes test. This is specifically notable given that male and female participants of our study had no significant difference in age and academic degree, suggesting that sex-dependent performance in Eyes test is not influenced by age and educational level—which may be cautiously interpreted as overall intelligence. In addition, there are items on which males and females performed significantly different (Table 6). Females performed better on items anticipating, decisive, friendly and defiant (items 13, 18, 20 and 23) whereas males outperformed females in recognizing playful, insisting and interested faces (items 1, 4 and 25). Previously there have been some reports on sex differences in detecting various states of mind. In one study females were faster in detecting happy facial expressions while men spent a considerably longer time viewing the nose and mouth (Vassallo et al. 2009). Other studies propose that these sex differences are based on the type of emotion. It is suggested that females are better at recognizing facial expressions of fear and sadness (Mandal and Palchoudhury 1985; Nowicki and Hartigan 1988), and males are superior at detecting anger (Mandal and Palchoudhury 1985; Rotter and Rotter 1988; Wagner 1986; Sawada et al. 2014). Evolutionary hypotheses have also been provided to explain the origins of such differences (Hampson et al. 2006). Although it seems that females do score ser than men when it comes to emotion recognition, whether these differences are seen for all emotions remains to be answered (Kret and De 2012). This is crucially important to determine that the widely replicated female superiority in Eyes test is an indication of an overall female psychological advantage over males or just a reflection of capability of detecting some emotions. If the latter is the case, the advantage of females in the Eyes test would be due to the higher frequency of items in which females perform better, not a general ability in reading minds. Since prenatal testosterone and sex chromosomes are physiological differences between men and women, an interesting idea for future research is to investigate the Eyes test results among patients with disorders of sex development (DSD), conditions where androgen or chromosomal profiles are atypical. This may be helpful for revealing the possible origin of sex differences in performance in Eyes test. Further support for the validity of the Persian Eyes test comes from the comparison of subgroups with various educational levels. As noted earlier there was no significant difference between those with diploma, bachelor, Master, Ph.D and M.D degrees. This shows that higher education does not affect ToM, as measured by the Persian Eyes test. This is in opposition to Yildirim’s study that showed those with university education score significantly higher than those with primary and high school education. However, it should be considered that in our study the lowest educational degree was Diploma. One can speculate that although different levels of higher education do not affect the performance in Eyes test, but there is a minimum level below which the performance of participants deteriorates significantly. Considering the E–S theory, our study has led to some notable findings. First of all, among those studied Humanities and engineering there were significant sex differences, with females scoring higher in the first and males in the second. This is consistent with E-S theory that predicts those with the S type brain, which is more common among men, tend to ‘analyze and construct rule-based systems’ (such as is involved in engineering) rather than to identify another’s mental states and to respond to these with an appropriate emotion (which is involved in the humanities) which is an aspect of those with E type brain, and more common among women. However, opposite to what theory predicts, we found no significant difference among various fields of study in performance on the Eyes test. Although the medicine subgroup had scored significantly better than other groups, post hoc comparison between groups showed that there was no overall main effect and the significant advantage of those studied medicine is nominal. The mean score among other three subgroups (humanities, engineering and sciences) were very close. There are several explanations for this inconsistency. First, one might assume that there is no correlation between performance in Eyes test and EQ. Reviewing the relevant literature shows that this is unlikely (Manson and Winterbottom 2011; Focquaert et al. 2007; Billington et al. 2007). Secondly, it might be due to an uncontrolled third factor varying between the subgroups, such as overall and verbal intelligence. This is important considering the studies investigating the correlation between verbal 123 J Autism Dev Disord Table 3 Percentage of participants in the upper and lower 27th percentile choosing the target in each item item Lower 27 % Upper 27 % Item Lower 27 % Upper 27 % Q1** 41.5 66.1 Q19** 55.9 78.8 Q2* 60.2 87.3 Q20** 81.4 97.5 Q3** 30.5 67.8 Q21** 35.6 72 Q4** 48.3 77.1 Q22** 61.9 92.4 Q5** 44.9 71.2 Q23* 45.8 63.6 Q6** 67.8 89.9 Q24* 52.5 69.5 Q7** 9.3 30.5 Q25** 27.1 49.2 Q8** 50.8 86.4 Q26** 50 91.5 Q9 55.9 62.7 Q27** 41.5 56.8 Q10** 37.3 58.5 Q28** 31.4 66.9 Q11** 39.8 62.7 Q29* 28.8 44.9 Q12** 62.7 86.4 Q30** 73.3 94.9 Q13* 55.1 74.6 Q31** 46.6 72 Q14** 81.4 99.2 Q32** 68.6 89 Q15** Q16** 59.3 49.2 89.8 75.4 Q33** Q34** 54.2 47.5 85.6 76.3 Q17** 41.5 72 Q35** 38.1 72 Q18** 62.7 94.9 Q36** 49.2 86.4 * p \ 0.01; ** p \ 0.0001 Table 4 Item analysis of Eyes Test: Difficulty index (Pi)a and index of Discrimination (Di)b for each item Item Di Pi Item Di Pi Item Di Pi Item Di Pi Q1 24.58 53.81 Q12 23.73 74.58 Q23 17.80 54.66 Q34 28.81 61.86 Q2 27.12 73.73 Q13 19.49 64.83 Q24 16.95 61.02 Q35 33.90 55.08 Q3 37.29 49.15 Q14 17.80 90.25 Q25 22.03 38.14 Q36 37.29 67.80 Q4 28.81 62.71 Q15 30.51 74.58 Q26 41.53 70.76 Q5 26.27 58.05 Q16 26.27 62.29 Q27 15.25 49.15 Q6 22.03 78.81 Q17 30.51 56.78 Q28 35.59 49.15 Q7 21.19 19.92 Q18 32.20 78.81 Q29 16.10 36.86 Q8 35.59 68.64 Q19 22.88 67.37 Q30 21.19 84.32 Q9 6.78 59.32 Q20 16.10 89.41 Q31 25.42 59.32 Q10 21.19 47.88 Q21 36.44 53.81 Q32 20.34 78.81 Q11 22.88 51.27 Q22 30.51 77.12 Q33 31.36 69.92 a Very difficult (p \ 30 %); Moderately difficult (31 % \ p \ 50 %); Medium difficulty (51 % \ p \ 70 %); Moderately easy (71 % \ p \ 90 %); Very easy (p [ 90 %) b D [ 39: Excellent; 39 [ D [ 30: Good; 29 [ D [ 20: Mediocre; 19 [ D [ 0: Poor; -1 [ D: Worst intelligence and performance in Eyes test (Peterson and Miller 2012). When comparing sex differences we could cautiously infer that there is no significant difference between our male and female participants regarding their educational level. But it is not the same considering the subgroups in various academic fields. This is because most Iranian students have to choose their academic field of study according to their rank in the National University Examination which is taken at the end of the last year of high school and is very competitive. This causes most of the students to choose their academic field of study based on their available options, and not their preferences and 123 interests. And those with highest grades mostly, if not exclusively, regard ‘medicine’ as their first option. Thus, one might claim that various academic subgroups in Iran may not be similar based on their general intelligence. In addition, it has been noted that performance on the Eyes test is correlated with social skills and affective as well as cognitive empathy (Grove et al. 2014). Thirdly, it has been suggested that medical students have higher abilities on the Eyes test. However, this is not consistent in the literature either (for a review see (Pedersen 2010)). Although most of these studies used measures other than the Eyes test to evaluate the ToM but some used the Eyes test (Dehning et al. 2013). J Autism Dev Disord Table 5 Percentage of agreement between the participant’s performance in test and retest Item Both correct Both wrong One correct and one wrong Same response Q1 54.55 22.73 22.73 77.27 Q2 61.36 13.64 25.00 77.27 Q3 54.55 18.18 27.27 72.73 Q4 54.55 27.27 18.18 77.27 Q5 59.09 31.82 9.09 86.36 Q6 77.27 6.82 15.91 86.36 Q7 20.45 70.45 9.09 75.00 Q8 59.09 13.64 27.27 70.45 Q9 50.00 13.64 36.36 63.64 Q10 40.91 34.09 25.00 63.64 Q11 31.82 38.64 29.55 61.36 Q12 36.36 6.82 56.82 70.45 Q13 47.73 31.82 20.45 77.27 Q14 86.36 2.27 11.36 88.64 Q15 Q16 79.55 36.36 9.09 29.55 11.36 34.09 84.09 63.64 Q17 43.18 31.82 25.00 70.45 Q18 86.36 0.00 13.64 86.36 Q19 61.36 15.91 22.73 72.73 Q20 84.09 2.27 13.64 86.36 Q21 43.18 29.55 27.27 68.18 Q22 65.91 15.91 18.18 81.82 Q23 47.73 22.73 29.55 70.45 Q24 43.18 15.91 40.91 54.55 Q25 29.55 38.64 31.82 63.64 Q26 75.00 9.09 15.91 84.09 Q27 38.64 34.09 27.27 65.91 Q28 45.45 22.73 31.82 63.64 Q29 4.55 61.36 34.09 47.73 Q30 79.55 9.09 11.36 86.36 Q31 Q32 40.91 79.55 34.09 4.55 25.00 15.91 68.18 84.09 Q33 59.09 15.91 25.00 72.73 Q34 59.09 11.36 29.55 70.45 Q35 47.73 25.00 27.27 65.91 Q36 56.82 20.45 22.73 72.73 The italicized items have failed to fulfill the 70 % agreement criterion of Hutchins (Hutchins et al. 2008) Another strategy we used to analyze the validity of the Persian Eyes test was to evaluate its items according to discrimination and difficulty indices. An appropriate measure should be difficult enough that it can reveal more subtle variations among the general population (Hallerback et al. 2009). Our results indicated that participants in the upper 27 percentile (based on their final score) performed on all items (except item 9) significantly better in comparison to those in lower 27 percentile (Table 3). The calculated discrimination index for each item, too, showed that all items, though with different efficiencies, can discriminate among the participants (the index of item 9, again, was considerably lower than others), (Table 4). This is particularly plausible on items which were previously considered as problematic: 4 out of 6 items that failed to meet the first condition, and 8 out of 13 items that failed to meet the second condition, had mediocre to good discrimination indexes. Since to the best of our knowledge this is the first study to evaluate the discrimination and difficulty indices of Eyes test items, we could not compare our results to previous studies. 123 J Autism Dev Disord Finally, any attempt to exclude some items from the Eyes test remained inconclusive (Table 8). As this shows, the internal consistency and test–retest reliability of the whole test, measured by Cronbach’s Alpha and ICC, does not change dramatically in different conditions. This is true of other results except one: the female advantage disappears when excluding those items which failed to meet the second condition. Considering the similar results of other studies, this low internal consistency may be originated from the nature of the test not the reliability of translated items and thus, no exclusion seems to be inevitable. These findings suggest that the validity of an item in Eyes test cannot be dismissed based only on one criterion such as first and second conditions that has been traditionally used for exclusion of items. Instead a multiple approach, considering various measures of validity and reliability, would be necessary. Suggesting an algorithm for validating the items of Eyes test, however, is far beyond Table 6 Percentage of males and females choosing the target in each item Item Males Females Item Males Females Q1* 59.3 48.2 Q19 68.1 71.3 Q2 71.9 72 Q20** 87.1 95.4 Q3 51 55.7 Q21 57.4 55 Q4* 70.3 57.4 Q22 79.8 81.6 Q5 56.7 59.2 Q23* 46.4 56.7 Q6 76 80.5 Q24 63.5 65.6 Q7 Q8 17.5 68.8 19.9 76.2 Q25* Q26 44.5 76 34 79.8 Q9 60.1 62.1 Q27 44.9 46.9 Q10 47.9 37.9 Q28 49.4 44.3 Q11 47.5 55.7 Q29 39.5 36.5 Q12 71.5 77 Q30 85.6 87.9 Q13** 57 70.6 Q31 60.8 55.7 Q14 92 95 Q32 76.8 81.2 Q15 79.1 83.2 Q33 63.5 69.1 Q16 57 61.3 Q34 67.3 63.1 Q17 55.1 60.3 Q35 49.8 56.8 Q18* 77.9 86.5 Q36 65.8 71.3 * p \ 0.01; ** p \ 0.001 the scope of this study. Nonetheless, our study showed that some previously invalid items may bear some importance considering the ability of participants in reading minds of others through their eyes. The comparative study of items, explained here, clearly demonstrated that in spite of disparities there are inherent similarities in how participants with various cultural backgrounds perform in Eyes test. These findings in combination with previous studies showing that the Eyes test is sensitive to sex differences and to differences among people who choose different academic fields (Baron-Cohen et al. 2001a), that it is sensitive to various levels of prenatal testosterone in children (Chapman et al. 2006) and in adults who have been administrated oxytocin (Domes et al. 2007), suggests that the Eyes test is measuring a substantial aspect of human cognition; otherwise such correlations would not be evident. Whether ToM, as measured by Eyes test, can be improved through practice or not remains an open question. Although our study implied a negative answer, there are studies that have proposed performance in Eyes test may be improved, at least temporarily, by reading literary fiction (Kidd and Castano 2013). This study was not without limitations. First the participants performed the test online, so the experimenters could not control the environmental factors affecting the participants while performing the test. Secondly, although the demographic combination of our participants was more diverse than most of the similar studies, it was not a representative sample of the general population. All of our participants were users of the World Wide Web, meaning that they have at least an elementary level of education. The range of scores among educationally more varied samples might be more extended. The mean age of our participants, too, was relatively young. Thirdly, our study lacked any measure of intelligence (verbal or nonverbal) which may influence the performance on Eyes test. In conclusion, the Eyes test is an easy-to-use, easy-toscore measure of facial affect recognition (Vellante et al. 2013). This study indicated that psychometric properties of the Persian Eyes test, the revised version for adults, are generally acceptable except items 9 and 29 which its translations have to be reconsidered both in target and foils, regarding their failure according to several criteria. Table 7 Eyes test score in different subgroups of participants defined by academic degree and field of study Statistics Medicine Humanities Engineering Sciences Mean 23.60 22.70 22.73 22.90 23.82 22.47 22.76 22.60 23.60 SD 2.95 3.21 3.39 3.55 2.99 3.43 3.31 4.07 2.90 Number 91 146 160 106 40 261 130 23 91 123 Diploma Bachelor Master Ph.D Doctor of medicine J Autism Dev Disord Table 8 The results after excluding problematic items according to each criterion Criterion Descriptive statistics U p value p value Field of study p value 0.371 33,583 \0.05 0.076 0.235 – 0.437 31,946 \0.05, 0.01 0.375 0.458 9, 10, 11, 16, 21, 24, 25, 27, 28, 29, 31, 35 8–25 0.303 36,527 0.761 0.295 0.76 3, 5, 13, 17, 23, 24, 33, 35, 36 8–28 0.416 32,025 \0.05, 0.01 0.164 0.408 7, 10, 25, 27, 28, 29 9–30 0.385 33,591 \0.05 0.113 0.241 9 Mean Range Eyes test 22.76 9–31 Agreement 16.6 4–18 [25 % 17.422 \50 % 20.46 27th percentile 22.18 Cronbach’s alpha Sex Acknowledgments This study was part of a medical doctorate dissertation which was fully supported by Mashhad University of Medical Sciences. 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